Revellers take part in the "Plague Doctors Procession" in Venice on Tuesday night during the usual period of the Carnival festivities, most of which have been canceled following the coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy. Photo: Andrea Pattaro/AFP via Getty Images
The big picture: Most of the 80,000 COVID-19 infections have occurred in mainland China. But cases are starting to surge elsewhere. By Wednesday morning, the worst affected countries outside China were South Korea (1,146), where a U.S. soldier tested positive to the virus, Italy (332), Japan (170), Iran (95) and Singapore (91). On Tuesday, new cases were confirmed in Switzerland, Croatia and Algeria.
People buy face masks at a retail store in Daegu, South Korea, on Tuesday, where many of the country's infections have occurred. Photo: Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty ImagesThe closing minutes of trading on the New York Stock Exchange floor on Tuesday. Concerns of the coronavirus becoming a global pandemic saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average lose almost 900 points. There were 57 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. as of Wednesday morning. Most are citizens repatriated from other countries. Photo: Scott Heins/Getty ImagesRevelers at the Nice carnival in France. The country had reported 14 infections by Wednesday morning. Photo: Valery Hache/AFP via Getty ImagesPassengers, from Algeria, Libya and Mauritania on a bus after being evacuated from China to Algiers, Algeria, on Tuesday, as the country became the first in Africa to confirm a coronavirus infection. Photo: Fatma Hamdi/Picture alliance via Getty ImagesA man who has recovered from the COVID-19 being disinfected by a medical professional before leaving the hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus, in China. Photo: STR/AFP via Getty ImagesSome Londoners have taken to wearing masks on the tube. There were 13 confirmed coronavirus cases in the United Kingdom as of Wednesday morning. Photo: S.C. Leung/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ImagesCoronavirus is a theme at the carnival in Duesseldorf, Germany, which confirmed 18 infections by Wednesday morning. Photo by Fabian Strauch/picture alliance via Getty ImagesA medical staff member takes the temperature of visitors to the Singapore Airshow as a precautionary measure. Photo: Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty ImagesItalian urban artist Salvatore "TVBOY" Benintende has depicted Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa wearing a mask and holding a mobile phone reading "Mobile World Virus" in a Barcelona street after the World Mobile Congress was cancelled in the city over coronavirus concerns. Spain had six confirmed cases by Wednesday morning. Photo: Pau Barrena/AFP via Getty ImagesPakistani soldiers patrol in Taftan, near Pakistan's now-closed border with Iran, which confirmed 95 cases by early Wednesday. Photo: Banaras Khan/AFP via Getty ImagesThe quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship at Daikoku pier cruise terminal in Yokohama, Japan. There had been a total of 691 confirmed infections among passengers and crew by Wednesday morning. Photo: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty ImagesSanitary workers disinfect Qom's Masumeh shrine to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Iran. The country reported at least 16 coronavirus-related deaths by Wednesday morning. Photo: Mehdi Marizad/Fars News Agency/AFP via Getty Images
A number of prominent Republican lawmakers addressed President Trump's refusal on Wednesday to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses November's presidential election.
Driving the news: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted, "The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th. There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792."
A slew of high-profile journalists have recently announced they are leaving newsrooms to launch their own, independent brands, mostly via email newsletters.
Context: Many of those writers, working with new technology companies like Substack, TinyLetter, Lede or Ghost, have made the transition amid the pandemic.